“Then you do wonder what kind of logistical help they must have needed.”

“Isn’t it your job to answer that question?”

He laughed quietly to himself, folded his fingers together in front of his face as if thinking. He said, “Who is your source?”

I leaned in very close, whispered into his ear, “I’m not going to tell you.”

Tvist’s turn to whisper: “This is an issue of national security.”

I half laughed. “I genuinely don’t know the identity of my source.”

“But you have your suspicions? No?”

I looked about me. People were reacting to our whispered conversation. I turned to Tvist. “The internal meanderings of my brain are not the business of the police.”

“Very satirical.” He got up, brushed himself down, sniffed. “Have you thought about how you will bear it when the time comes for these men to talk about Alicia?”

He had spoken the words loudly and deliberately.

“No,” I said just as loudly. “I haven’t thought about that.”

People were turning toward us.

“Perhaps you should,” he said.

Some nagging voice told me that taking on Tvist was a mistake, that perhaps he was neither corrupt nor incompetent, that he was simply playing the long game. But a year had gone by and we were no closer to finding our daughter. I watched him go, doing nothing to disguise my anger.

When I turned toward the court I found Paul Andersen trying to lock his gaze onto mine.

That smile. As if the two of us shared some horrible secret.

Thirty-One

After twenty minutes I could bear no more of the men’s cruelty. I took the train home.

I stood outside the apartment building, looking in. No sign of movement. No trace of Elsa’s phone on my screen. Why had she switched it off? Was she out buying gin and olives at the mall? Perhaps the simplest explanation was the best.

On a terrace two floors up a woman was polishing shoes, stopping from time to time to examine the sheen. She noticed me watching, raised a hand in greeting. I waved back. Then I went down to the garage and drove out to Garden Island.

I had come to remember. I had half expected to be alone, but the road was filled with cars parked all the way down. I had to walk the last mile on foot.

One year.

People filed along the grass at the side of the road. Most were in their twenties. Many were younger. Some cried as they walked. Some spoke to each other in hushed words, as our shoes scuffed the path and our breathing filled the air around us. Some of us smiled private smiles, as if lost in thoughts of our loved ones. Many of us carried flowers. Had they, like me, simply felt the call?